Allergen Control and Management in the Food Industry.

 

The labelling of 12 specified allergens has been required under the Food Labelling (Amendment) 2004 since it's implementation in November 2005 and Holchem has undertaken free allergen awareness training aimed at supervisors, managers and team leaders covering the key points of allergen control.  The requirement for the effective control of allergens is soon to be strengthened with the introduction of retailer and 3rd party standards relating to all aspects of allergen control and labelling in the food processing sector - Holchem will post a review of these standards once they are published.

 

Holchem have been involved with the Anaphylaxis Campaign's proposed third-party standard relating to the management of allergens in the food manufacturing  / processing sector which is due to be published mid-November 2007 by Highfield.co.uk.  The aim of this standard is to enable businesses to map their allergen controls and management against an accredited standard - further details will be available once the documentation is available.

 

Each of these standards are understood to contain requirements to carry out validation and routine testing for the presence of both specific and non-specific allergens and Holchem is pleased to be able to offer the only real-time rapid test for seven key allergens: -

  • Peanut
  • Gluten
  • Casein
  • Shellfish
  • Almond
  • Hazelnut
  • Egg
  • Other allergens are in development including Walnut and Soya

These tests have been developed by Tepnel Research Products and Services (the UK specialist in DNA, ELISA and speciation testing) and are exclusively available from Holchem in the UK.

 

To assist the food processing / manufacturing industry in achieving the level of control needed Holchem has produced a technical guide which is freely available to download using this link in PDF format (requires Adobe Acrobat reader), in addition a single-page summary s available using this link.

 

For further information or to discuss the management of allergens please contact your local Technical Sales Consultant or Holchem directly on info@holchem.co.uk.